(0:00) Welcome to the BLTNT podcast. I’m your host, Matt Loria, serving up real stories of business, (0:05) life, technology, and transformations. You’ll hear from interesting people about big changes (0:09) from career shifts to life-altering decisions and the innovations that help make it all happen.

(0:14) It’s about sharing those light bulb moments, pivot points, challenges overcome, and the journeys (0:19) that inspire us to think differently. If you’re on the lookout for insights to propel you forward, (0:23) stories that resonate, or just a bit of inspiration on your next BLTNT move,(0:27) you’re in the right place. Let’s dig in.

(0:38) Welcome to another episode of the BLTNT podcast. I’m Matt Loria, (0:42) and I’m here with my friend Jay Howerlick. Matt, good to be here.

Good to see you. (0:47) Nice. Yes.

And I just learned just a couple of minutes ago that (0:51) Jay is not your name any longer. It is now Super Jay. (0:56) Yeah.

My grandkids call me Super Jay. Okay. Well, I think that’s, I’m changing (1:00) in my phone right now.

Well, that’s a good idea. So what happened is when my daughter-in-law got (1:07) pregnant with the oldest, she called me in December and said, I got to know your grandparent name. (1:14) Now, Tyler wasn’t scheduled to be born until May.

So I said, it’s early. Plus, (1:21) he’s not going to be talking for a while. I have to know now.

I have to know now. She’s (1:27) kind of a demanding person. And so I said, well, you know, I’m too young to be grandpa.

(1:33) So I started to do synonyms of grandpa, you know, fantastic, wonderful. And then said super. So I (1:40) said, Super Jay.

She’s like, I’m not going to have my kids call you Super Jay. Well, (1:45) Craig thought it was hilarious. And when Tyler was born, he said to the camera, because they’re (1:50) in Maryland.

And it’s like, say hi to Super Jay. So they’ve called me Super Jay. All right.

(1:55) And so it’s unique. It’s different. It’s fun.

They’ve shortened it. Now they’re older. They (2:00) call me Soup.

All right. So Super Jay is, aside from being a super grandpa, is the CEO, president, (2:09) founder of Acumax. That’s correct.

That’s what you do for your day job. That’s what I do for (2:14) my day job. When you’re not changing diapers and doing super grandpa.

It’s been a long time since (2:21) that. They’re grown. They spent a week with us at the beginning of August and it was great.

(2:26) It was great having them there. And, you know, Tyler, he’s 19. And when he graduated from high (2:33) school, I said, I thought he was going to be an engineer.

And I said, what are you going to do? (2:37) And he’s like, I’m going to the skilled trades. So he got a job with an electrical company as (2:42) an apprentice. They’re paying for his schooling.

He’s like, in seven years, I can be a master (2:47) electrician and have my own company. So I like the entrepreneurialism. Love it.

You know, Parker, (2:53) the younger, he just turned 17. He’s quite a good golfer. I got him on TPC Michigan to golf 18.

(3:02) Kid first time on there hit an 86. What do you normally hit? I don’t golf. Okay.

I don’t. I (3:10) live on a golf course, but I don’t go. I plan on.

I hit 86 on the first nine. That’s kind of what I (3:16) was looking at, you know, now Craig, he did a one Oh nine. So that’s kind of more of my area, (3:21) but I was impressed with that.

I said, you know, man, you’re good being at the time, 16 and an 86 (3:27) on TPC. Pretty good. Not bad.

Not bad at all. All right. So super J tell us about, tell us about (3:35) Acumax.

I obviously know what it is. I’m a customer. I have been for a while in two different (3:41) companies.

And, um, so let’s, let’s, let’s talk about that and, uh, and hear what that does. (3:47) Cause, uh, you said that that daughter-in-law was a little demanding. So I’d love to know what her (3:50) Acumax profile is.

So let’s start off by telling everybody what happens. She works for the company. (3:59) Well, you know, Acumax index were considered a personality assessment, (4:04) but most personality assessments are based in the social sciences, (4:09) the observable behavior of people.

We are unique. We’re based in the neural sciences (4:17) in the 18 to 24 month period. After any human being on the planet is born, (4:23) certain chemicals come together in the brain and they create specific neural pathways.

(4:29) These pathways never change. They’re static. So it’s a deep dive into an individual.

(4:37) It basically tells us the environment one best thrives within. You have kids, right? Oh yeah.(4:45) Did you go through the terrible twos? Well, I remember mine are all adopted.

So, (4:49) so I got them all after the, after the, after the service. That’s right. Well, (4:54) teens got them through that.

Well, what are we the smartest in our lifetime? When, (5:00) when we’re a teenager, 17, as any 17 year old, they’ll know it. They know everything. (5:06) So, um, but no, a lot of people that go through that, they go through the terrible twos.

(5:10) And the reason is your wiring pattern is the purest at the time behavior is inundated by(5:18) external elements. You know what we call nurture, you know, where I’m born upbringing education, (5:25) where I got it, life’s experiences, all the good and the bad things that happen to somebody over (5:31) a lifetime change your innate behavior. I mean, by your wiring, you’re innately trusting of people.

(5:40) But my guess is because you’re trusting of people, you’ve probably gotten burned a few times. (5:45) So what happens is that age of maturity kicks in and you want to trust them, (5:50) but then a little guy pops up on your shoulder and says, I don’t think so. (5:53) Remember those other times? Yeah.

(5:55) Yeah. You know, so it’s a great explanation why and understanding that good, bad, right,(5:59) wrong just is, but so it’s a deep dive into an individual and it does not change. (6:06) Right.

I, um, uh, a couple of, a couple of comments about the Acumax profile. So what it, (6:12) what it does is it, it breaks things down into five different elements, right. And, um, or, (6:18) or different, um, Oh, what are, what are, what are they called? What are the five elements called?(6:22) Drive characteristics.

(6:23) Drive characteristics. And, uh, when I, when I first was in, uh, uh, uh, an executive peer group, (6:31) everybody knew about this, but me. And so we’re in Michigan and in Michigan,(6:36) everybody plays Euchre except for me.

Okay. And so when people are playing Euchre around the table, (6:41) they’re all talking this, this Trump Bauer and everything’s moving really fast and nobody ever (6:47) really wants to teach it to you. Okay.

That’s kind of how it was with Acumax. Oh, hi, A, this B, (6:52) you this D this. And I’m like, you guys are all talking Greek.

I don’t understand Greek (6:57) and I’m getting pissed off because nobody’s explaining this to me. And so, uh, so eventually, (7:04) um, uh, it was, it was taught to me, you know, through, uh, through our, our mentor and that, (7:10) and, um, and I remember one of the things they, they taught us was, and you said, (7:16) it’s not good or bad. It just is.

Right. And it was very eyeopening for me. Um, (7:22) because you’re looking at something and you’re thinking, I was thinking some of, some of what (7:27) I learned in my upbringing was, no, that guy’s okay.

That guy’s an idiot. That guy’s an asshole. (7:32) Yeah.

Right. And, um, you know, and, and that wasn’t always the right, (7:37) that wasn’t always the right, uh, judgment, uh, to put on those people. Oh, they’re, (7:43) they’re certainly not like me.

They’re different, but why is that? And then you start to learn this (7:49) and you go through these, you know, these behavioral kind of analytics like this and you (7:53) realize, oh, okay. So these, these things are what light, light somebody else up versus, versus me. (7:59) I get lit up by something completely different.

Absolutely. And, um, boy, what a, what a change (8:04) in my paradigm of just the world of, okay, everybody can be, everybody can be different (8:10) and it’s okay. Yep.

It is. And you need a little bit of everybody. It just, it kind of just explains (8:15) the reason why.

Sure. Um, you know, there’s no good wiring, there’s no bad wiring, there’s just (8:22) wiring. And one of the things we’re very proud of is we are very objective in how we present.

(8:29) Everybody has strengths. Everybody has limitations. We don’t honor one wiring over another.

(8:37) Uh, many instruments out there slant toward or against a particular type of personality.(8:44) So we’re very objective, you know, I mean, the best wiring pattern is the one you need for a (8:50) specific job. That’s really how it is, but any wiring pattern can fit based upon the job role.

(8:56) Okay. And you’re, uh, I remember you telling me, I can’t remember what the quality is EEOC (9:02) that your, your, your, your system can be used to determine, do we hire somebody or do we not? (9:11) To be used as part of the pre-screening process, you have to have two elements. (9:15) Okay.

Number one, you have to be statistically validated, (9:18) which statistical validation really means, do we purport to measure what we say we measure? (9:24) Second of all, are you EEOC compliant? You can’t apply for it. You just have to be it. (9:30) So that means do you bias toward or against any particular class? And we do not.

(9:36) Gotcha. Gotcha. So that’s why it’s so prevalent in, in business here and it’s easy to use and.

(9:43) Well, it saves businesses time and money because I can have somebody take (9:47) the assessment with a press of a button, see how well they match the design position profile. (9:54) If they’re a good match, I bring them in for an interview. If they’re not a good match, (9:58) pass and move on.

So what it eliminates is that oftentimes that step where you’re bringing in (10:05) tons of people to interview and this, this is, it’s a great indicator. Actually you get (10:11) information out of the survey process. When you send a survey to a candidate and they don’t (10:16) complete it, their level of interest in the job is low.

And those are historically the people (10:22) you’ve scheduled interviews with and they don’t show up. Yep. So it gives you a lot of insight (10:27) in the interview process, but then you can focus.

I already know the person’s wiring. (10:33) So the interview can shift because a lot of times a standard interview is I got to, (10:37) got to get to know Matt. Yeah.

Right. About him. Well, I already know about him from his wiring (10:42) pattern.

So I can shift the interview to talk more about what his aspirations are. Is he going (10:47) to be a culture fit? What kind of a culture is he looking for? You know, because culture is very (10:52) important in an organization right now. So I can change the interview process.

Plus we also have (11:02) individual questions based upon interview questions based upon somebody’s wiring pattern. (11:07) That helps. Oftentimes hiring managers who aren’t professional interviewers, (11:12) oftentimes that can turn into a get to know you session.

No, I like Matt. He’s a great guy. Go (11:16) house.

We should hire him. Or a data dump on the company. So it allows them to ask better (11:22) questions, be a little deeper into the individual, kind of get to know them.

Perfect. So let’s do (11:27) this. And I know you are kind of a savant.

You basically remember everyone that you’ve ever (11:34) met. You remember their wiring pattern. So pick on you and me and let’s tell everybody what your (11:42) wiring pattern is, what mine is, how that shows up different in both of us.

Okay. And then we (11:47) can fight about it. My wiring pattern.

Well, let me talk about the channels first. Okay. (11:53) So we divide into A, B, C, and D. And there’s several instruments that use A, B, C, D, by the (11:57) way.

But A is what we call autonomy. When you’re high in the A, you’re an individual who likes (12:04) their way of doing things best. When you’re low in the A, you’re actually more team oriented.

(12:10) You like options and decision-making. One of the big differentiators is high A’s can never be (12:17) engaged in an idea unless they put their thumbprint on it. Make it theirs.

That’s kind of (12:24) key buy-in. Low A says, hey, if it’s a great idea, let’s do it. So that’s just kind of a quick (12:31) thumbnail.

B is what we call communication. Everybody talks. Everybody thinks.

But the B (12:37) drive is how I process thought. High B’s were verbal communicators. We’re the kind of individuals (12:44) that will sit down and say, okay, I’m thinking about turning right.

I’m thinking about going (12:48) straight. I’m thinking about turning left. But as we verbalize, we develop the thought process (12:53) and consecrate ideas.

Low B’s are just the opposite. They have to take time to think an (12:59) important issue through. Low B’s are oftentimes the ones that will come after a company meeting, (13:05) come up to you the next day and go, you know, I was thinking about what we talked about that (13:09) meeting.

I’m not so sure I bought in. C is what we call patience factor. So when you’re high in (13:16) the patience factor, your work style is to be more sequential, plan your activities, one, two, (13:22) in order.

You like elements of focus. You don’t really prefer distractions. (13:30) You have a long fuse.

Low C’s just the opposite. We do a things to do list one, two, three, four, (13:35) five, and we’ll start on 26, jump over to seven, work on three, four, and five. We have shorter (13:41) fuses.

We want to make quicker decisions. We like more variety. We’ll do a things to do list again,(13:47) we’ll follow it in any order.

D is what we call certainty. High D’s like proven information and (13:53) data in the decision-making process. They want to know the why factor.

Low D’s, we want the critical (13:59) points of information. And then lastly is the tilt factor. Tilt factor does a couple of things.

(14:06) Number one, it’s how I tilt in an ambiguous decision. 50% of the numbers say turn right,(14:12) 50% of the numbers say turn left. What will tilt be? Higher tilts can make a gut decision,(14:19) though they don’t feel as comfortable with it.

They tilt more toward the objective, the black (14:23) and white. Low tilts, we can make gut decisions and feel very comfortable with them. All right.

(14:29) The second thing is innate approachability. Low tilts are, they’re more approachable. We have (14:35) smaller personal space zones.

Higher tilts have wider personal space zones or less approachable. (14:43) It can be a red flag. About 3% of the time, it may be too high or too low in a profile.

And there’s (14:51) a special indicator that comes up in the software if that happens. So my profile, I’m high in the A. (14:57) I like my way of doing things best. I’m highest in the B. I like people interaction.

I like to (15:03) verbalize my thoughts. I want response when I’m communicating with people. I’m low in the C. (15:10) I’m more impatient.

I’m low in the D. I want the critical points of information. You and I, (15:17) and actually I’m low tilt, you and I are very similarly wired. The only difference is the A (15:21) drive.

You’re highest in the B, low in the C, low in the D, low tilt, low A. You’re a little more (15:27) team oriented. You like options and decision-making, but you will accept conflict when necessary.(15:34) So yeah, we’re pretty similar.

We’re pretty close. Yeah, we have great wiring patterns. Good stuff.

(15:39) But I noticed though, so then your system spits out two versions. One is the natural wiring, (15:47) which is that kind of innate, it’s not changing type of wiring. And then the other is the (15:51) adjusted, which my understanding, and I’ll make sure you can test me here, (15:56) is about the last 90 days view of kind of your working version of you.

Is that about right? (16:02) Yeah. Well, it’s the last, it’s a rear view mirror last 90 to 120 days of your life. (16:08) Okay.

(16:09) It’s predominantly driven by work, but important personal events can show up in it.(16:15) Got it. (16:15) So having a flat tire or a bad air day is not an important personal event.

Of course, (16:21) you’d never have a bad air day. No, perfect air every day. (16:23) I’m jealous, by the way.

So you’re getting married, getting divorced, (16:29) death or sickness of a family member, if I had to move cross country for a new job. (16:35) So the adjusted self creates great talking points because it only exists in two places, (16:43) on that piece of paper and in the person’s head. So you have to read it a little differently and (16:50) we have reports for that.

So you can say to somebody, well, why are you feeling this way? (16:54) You know, and well, you know, you promised me that I could take control of this project, (17:00) but every time I want to, you won’t let me. So it creates great talking points amongst people. (17:06) It also tells us, am I energized by my environment or de-energized? Now energized, (17:13) de-energized doesn’t mean I don’t like what I do.

Energized means I’m getting my motivators. (17:20) De-energized means either I’m making wiring changes, which takes mental energy, (17:25) or I’m not getting enough of my motivators. So it creates great talking points.

You know, (17:31) so for example, you know, you’re motivated by, Hey, great job. You know, let’s talk it through. (17:39) Yeah.

You’ve got an issue. Let’s kind of communicate with it. Offer of help.

You may (17:43) not always take it, but it means a lot to you. Where somebody who’s wired the opposite of you, (17:50) somebody who is highest, let’s say in the D drive, good job. Eh, it’s okay.

Well, (17:57) what they really want to hear is work done well. Why? Areas needing improvement and why? (18:03) Because by their very nature, they will strive for perfection and things that are important to them. (18:07) Motivators simply build self-confidence.

The more self-confidence people have, (18:14) the better they are in their job, the happier they are, more satisfied, less turnover to the (18:21) organization and more profitability for the company. Great. So, um, I’ll have you dig in (18:27) on mine a little bit here.

So my, my adjusted wiring has been highest a high B, but dialed down (18:35) low C, low D still low tilt factor for the last, at least, well, as long as I’ve been testing it. (18:43) So that’s, that’s been 12 years or 15 years or whatever it’s been. Um, every, every retake that (18:50) I’ve done is exactly the same.

And, um, so I’m, I’m, I’m, am I okay? This episode of the BLTNT (18:58) podcast is sponsored by Oxium, business IT and cybersecurity designed to outsmart chaos (19:03) and powered by Juniper networks, automate your network with Juniper networks and the (19:08) missed AI platform, the world’s first AI driven wired and wireless network. (19:12) Well, you’re only moving one drive, you know, and what is it? What do you, (19:16) you’re trying to either be more forceful, assertive, or more of the team leader. (19:20) All right.

Which makes sense. You’re an entrepreneur, you run your own business. (19:24) So yeah, you’re okay.

But it does drain energy. It does. Yeah.

And that’s kind of the key. So (19:30) oftentimes, you know, I’ll talk to a CEO or president of an organization there. (19:36) I’m constantly de-energized.

Why? One of the residual effects that impacts a lot of entrepreneurs (19:44) is the results we seek never come fast enough. So if we wanted a 20% increase in sales and we got (19:53) 25%, we’re like, that’s great. But if we hadn’t screwed around so much, we could have got 30.

(19:57) And that’s a haunting effect of entrepreneurs. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Now you got me thinking (20:04) a thousand different thoughts here.

So I’m going to move on. I want you to tell me and everyone (20:10) else, you know, how you got into this because you obviously, I think you obviously have to like, (20:17) you like people, you like talking to people, you like helping people. How did you end up here (20:24) doing this? Well, I kind of quite by accident fell into this arena 25 years ago.

(20:33) I was working as a lean manufacturing consultant, which was basically, you know, (20:39) business development and then chilling out between the executive team and the process(20:44) improvement team. Our company had a pretty poor behavioral department. I would really kind of (20:51) sum it up by saying, you know, it was the classic, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

(20:57) So I kind of went looking and I stumbled upon an assessment and then my conversations, (21:02) they offered me a position and I really liked it. Imagine my wife’s surprise though, when I (21:08) came home and said, Hey, guess what? I’m going to go sell assessments. She’s a wonderful person.

(21:13) She’s been very supportive. So how’s she on the patience? A little low, but you know,(21:20) she’s a wonderful wife. Okay.

So I got involved in it and I became very successful (21:26) at it. Um, and really, I’m really enjoyed what I did. However, there were some (21:36) things that they taught that didn’t make sense.

And I have an inquiring mind. I’m very inquisitive. (21:44) You got that high A, you also want to have, you know, so I would say, well, I don’t understand (21:49) this.

This doesn’t really make sense. This teaching, you know, Hey, maybe it applied good (21:53) 30, 40 years ago, but it just doesn’t apply today. And, uh, kind of bang my head up against (22:01) the wall frequently, you know, I’d call it and say, we got to change these things.

Well, you know, (22:06) we’ll take it to the advisory board and if they approve it, you know, maybe a change could be (22:11) made in two to three years. So, um, make a long story short, I ended up leaving (22:19) and I kiddingly say this, but it’s true because we’re both members of a professional group, (22:24) but hanging out with entrepreneurs for all those years kind of gave me the entrepreneurial bug. (22:29) So that wasn’t in your, your innate, well, I don’t know if wiring is a word, but like it wasn’t on (22:35) your roadmap originally.

It wasn’t no. Uh, entrepreneurialism isn’t the wiring pattern. (22:40) It’s a mindset.

Okay. It really is because you have entrepreneurs that are wired every way (22:46) possible out there. The commonality that I’ve noticed over the years is it’s a mindset.

(22:54) And I think probably I had that mindset, but I was really happy with what I was doing,(22:59) but I decided to, uh, strike out on my own. I had a one year non-solicitation that I honored, (23:06) but I developed this tool. I had gotten very interested in the neural sciences and that’s (23:14) more of an emerging area, by the way, uh, from the social sciences and so many behavioral assistance, (23:19) uh, assessments are based in.

So I have very interested in that. And so during my time off, (23:26) I started developing the assessment and actually kind of a cool story. Facebook was kind of fun (23:33) because I reconnected with people I hadn’t talked to in 20, 30 years.

(23:38) Hey, could you help me out a little bit? And so I, my first couple attempts were a disaster. They (23:44) were just a complete disaster. So I decided, well, rather than try and do it all at once, (23:50) cause you know, I’m OC, I’m impatient, let’s get all done.

So I had to broken down into the (23:55) individual drives and then I would have people do them. And then I would get feedback from them. (24:02) Does this make sense? Then I started to put it all together.

And then I went into, (24:09) oh, I don’t know how many companies. And I said, Hey, I’ll let you have all these reports. (24:16) If you’ll let me survey everybody in your company and then sit down and debrief with them.

(24:21) And so I did that. And, um, sometimes I would, you know, be honest about the person’s wiring (24:28) pattern. And other times I’d be like, oh, you like your way of doing things best.

You’re really heads (24:34) down. You want to process, you want lots of detail. No.

And then I’d say, oh, it won’t explain to me. (24:42) Then I’d show them the report. So I did it that way on purpose to get positive feedback.

Okay. (24:47) So did hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of those. And it was kind of challenging because (24:51) we didn’t have software at the time.

So I would do the graphs on a PowerPoint. (24:57) Oh, okay. (24:58) And develop all the graphs on a PowerPoint.

So, you know, um, (25:03) So how long did it take you to really hone it in to where, you know, the accuracy was? (25:07) A year. (25:08) Took you the year? (25:09) A year. (25:10) Okay.

(25:11) Then when I knew it was correct, then we went through the validation standpoint. (25:18) And I have a behavioral statistician that’s validated for us. Those are challenging to find, (25:24) by the way, um, who validated it for us.

And then as part of the validation, you want to look (25:31) at different sampling sets. You know, you want to look at women, you want to look at older people, (25:37) younger people, people of color, you know, you, so you want to look at that. Is there any (25:44) statistical skewing that’s occurring based on any of those subsets? And no, there wasn’t.

(25:49) Interesting. That’s really interesting. Especially because I think about, (25:53) I think differently as I get older, right? So even just thinking about myself, (25:58) but my wiring doesn’t change.

(26:00) Nope. But that’s age of maturity. You know, my dad used to tell me when I was a kid,(26:05) Jay, the older you get, the smarter I’ll become.

And darn it if he wasn’t right. (26:13) But now we don’t even have to be smart because we have AI, right? (26:17) Well, I don’t know about that because that’d be smart. (26:20) But, um, so shifting into the AI conversation, um, big, big launch, uh, in September of this year.

(26:29) Tell us about it. (26:30) In September, we introduced AI into the Acumax platform where we started with just two arenas. (26:37) Number one, an individual wiring pattern.

Okay. And number two, a position profile. (26:43) Now the eventual goal is to expand it into group profiles and team dynamics.

(26:48) So give me an example. What is, what does that, what’s that mean or look like? Cause(26:50) I’ve not played with it. Okay.

So if for an individual profile, you can ask it, summarize (26:56) this profile. Um, what jobs would this person be good for? What are their strengths and (27:02) limitations? How are they best coached? Um, you know, how, how would they, what would be the (27:09) best performance improvement program? So we have a lot of practical applications from the position (27:16) side, right? A job advertisement, what skills are necessary? What other jobs would this position(27:23) profile apply to? Can you, can you ask it then? So writing a position profile, if you have the (27:29) job description, can you pump that in there and ask it what, what profile, uh, would look, would (27:36) likely work the best? You can say based upon these, what do you think would be the best? And (27:40) now it’s not going to come out and say ABCD, but it’s going to say higher in autonomy, (27:44) lower in communication, higher in process, lower, but yes. And isn’t that a lot of what you get in (27:50) terms of calls from people today is people asking you that question.

So how’s that helping you with (27:56) scalability? Well, it’s, it, it allows the clients to do more on their own, get faster information. (28:03) We have ways of creating a position profile, but they can do it much quicker this way. (28:09) But as with any AI, you got to validate the data.

We’ve been really happy from what we’ve seen. (28:16) It seems that it’s been pretty consistent. I mean, when we were doing quality, we had fun with it.

(28:22) You know, we’d say, how would Matt be as a criminal? And it gave a great answer. You know, you can’t (28:28) tell criminal intent based upon a wiring pattern. Thank goodness.

That’s true. Yeah. Uh, well, you (28:36) know, as people ask me that all the time, but in wiring patterns of criminals, same as all of us, (28:40) they’re there for different reasons, you know? Um, you know, we just asked it fun questions too.

(28:46) If this person could fly, how often would they fly? And it gave great answers based upon the (28:51) wiring pattern. Interesting. What would be this person’s superpower? So we had a lot of fun with (28:59) it as well.

We encourage our clients to have some fun with it as well. He gave great answers. I mean,(29:05) with mine, it was a magnetic persuasion, which I think probably is pretty good.

Okay. For my (29:13) wife’s, it was time manipulation. Ooh.

Cause she’s a very task-based wiring pattern. Okay. (29:19) And so it said the time manipulation would allow her to slow down time when she has a lot to do (29:25) or speed it up when she’s done.

Okay. And I talked to her and she’s like, yeah, that’s me. (29:30) Be perfect, huh? So yeah, it was, it was just kind of a, it was fun and we’re, we’re proud of how (29:38) accurate the information and the data is coming back.

The engine behind it. Is it, is it, (29:43) is it learning also as it goes? Is it, is it continually getting better? Have you noticed? (29:48) Yes, it is. And one of the things is if you ask it the same question twice, (29:52) it’ll give you a different answer.

The second time, if you do it consecutively, (29:58) so it will kind of say, well, okay, maybe this one didn’t work. It’ll give you a slightly different (30:02) answer. Uh, but yeah, it’s, it’s learning.

So if you correct it, if you say something like, (30:07) Hey, that’s not really how this is feeling in real life, it’s learning it and applying it, (30:12) uh, across the, uh, the back end of the system then. Yep. Absolutely.

Okay. (30:17) You know, and we integrated it. And so we’re getting good information.

We ran in, (30:21) in our early days of working with AI, we were trying to just take bits and pieces of AI (30:29) into the software and it would get confused. So if we asked it, tell me about the A drive, (30:38) it would do that. Right.

But if we said, tell me about ABCD, you know, high A, low B, low CID, (30:44) it would get information wrong. It got confused. So we found through the integration, it learns (30:50) faster.

It keeps all of our information confidential. So we’re excited about that. (30:55) Um, and we think it’s just going to be a great boon for the clients, you know, and we’re going (31:02) to expand it to group profiles, team dynamics.

So, you know, what’s the dysfunctions of this team? (31:08) Where would this team be better served? Who would be a better individual in the team? (31:12) So, but we, we sat, you know, we got to walk before we can run. Yeah. Yeah.

And so we’re (31:17) still collecting client feedback on it. Cause one of the things I’m really proud of in our (31:23) software, we’re in the fifth version of our software, by the way, in 13 years, (31:27) but what I’m really proud of is that the clients have had so much input into it.(31:33) You know, they’ve called us up and they said, gee, it would be great if it could do this.

(31:37) Well, I’ve noticed, noticed that, you know, when you, you’ve had some summits and things (31:40) of that nature where you bring together groups of clients and I mean, they’re zealots. I mean, (31:46) you know, the people who are using it really love it. So you’re doing something right.

How many, (31:51) what’s the footprint looking like right now? Where we’re, what type of companies, where, (31:57) where’s it being used? Give me some idea of that. (32:00) Well, right now we’re in probably 70 different fields. People ask me, you know, what companies (32:06) use Acumax? And my reply, companies that hire people, you know, now, if you’re totally all (32:13) robotic, no, it’s not going to work.

And I don’t know what the wiring pattern is for Rowett. (32:18) Um, you know, so, but predominantly we focus on growth oriented companies and entrepreneurs who (32:28) want to expand and grow their businesses and companies that are suffering a turnover problem. (32:36) We will solve turnover.

I mean, based on the industry, some industries, you know, there’s (32:42) a hundred percent turnover. Uh, if you can get it down to 70%, that’s a huge monetary savings for (32:49) that business. You know, um, I mean, we do have clients that have no turnover at all, you know,(32:55) other than retirement.

Uh, but they really follow the process. Well, it helps you strategically (33:01) build your workforce and reduce turnover because here, here’s the issue that occurs. (33:10) Somebody who’s not a wiring fit for their job is usually turnover or a problem child.

Can you (33:20) play along with me here real quick? Would you want to work on an assembly line? I would not. (33:25) Could you do the work if you had to? I could. More importantly, when you went in for the interview, (33:31) could you sell yourself as a good assembly line worker? If I needed that job, I absolutely could.

(33:36) What would you be thinking every day when you walked into work? I want to shoot myself (33:40) in the face. Thank you. Yeah.

That’s why, you know, 65% of the U.S. workforce is disconnected (33:48) from their jobs. There’s really two reasons. Number one, I’m not a wiring fit for the job.

(33:54) And number two, I’m not properly motivated because today’s managers, there is some degree (34:00) of authoritative management out there, but that’s really kind of waning. You know, good (34:06) managers need to be coaches and they need to build the self-confidence of your workforce. (34:12) The more you build the self-confidence of your workforce, the less supervision they need.

(34:17) Correct. And actually, it kind of ties right into a human need of self-determination and(34:23) self-direction. Most employees don’t want to be supermanaged, but if you build them up the right (34:30) way, developing their self-confidence, they flourish.

That’s great. What have you learned (34:38) as a leader? You know, you went from being an employee however many years ago, 13 years, (34:45) 14 years ago, running your own business. What are some of the biggest learnings that you’ve had? (34:51) Well, number one is understanding that most of your employees are not going to have the same (35:02) mindset that you have.

As I said earlier, entrepreneurialism is a mindset. So, you know, (35:10) they’re not going to have that same mindset. That’s fine.

That took me a little time to kind (35:15) of understand. You know, the second thing is I provide a lot of autonomy to my team. We train (35:27) them up correctly.

We provide autonomy. We set goals and then we talk about those goals weekly (35:35) and try and get them motivated. I’ve got a team that’s been with me for a long time.

(35:40) And everybody’s remote too. (35:41) And everybody’s remote. (35:42) Which adds to the autonomy piece.

(35:44) Well, that was another learning tool. Not everybody is cut out to be remote. (35:49) We hired some people who really wanted to come on board, good wiring, but they were very corporate (35:55) driven.

And so they missed those corporate meetings. And so it takes a special kind of (36:02) person to be able to work autonomously and, you know, not want to sit down and watch TV (36:08) in the middle of the afternoon. But I’ve got a great team.

They’re all very focused. (36:13) We’re very flexible. That’s one of the things I’ve kind of learned is to be very flexible.

(36:18) We don’t have any required work hours. We don’t have any vacation policy. (36:24) And we hired a person and he’d been on board about a month and he called me and he said, (36:29) this is weird.

You don’t have any scheduled work hours, but everybody’s always online (36:34) and working and you don’t have any vacation policy, but nobody really abuses it. Why? (36:40) So, well, I hope to hire adults. If it’s like this, if you want time, take it.

If it’s a slow (36:48) Thursday afternoon in July and you want to go out and cut your grass, go right ahead out here. (36:52) As long as we take care of the clients. Client service, customer service is one of our number (36:58) one values.

And as long as you take care of that, have flexibility. (37:03) Well, and I can say, one, I didn’t even know that until you just told me that about the (37:08) level of flexibility that you offer. And I mean, I’ve called that some odd times, (37:14) or real early, real late type of times.

And I always get somebody that is there that’s (37:22) highly competent that can answer my question. That’s the other thing is that I’ve never run (37:26) into, oh, let me, I got to talk to Jay about that. I’ve never, no one’s ever said that to me.

(37:31) No, I mean, they’re very well-trained. They know what they do, what they’re doing. I mean, (37:36) it does take, a lot of people think this is easy.

It takes a good six to nine months to bring (37:43) somebody up to speed because it’s all the minor things, the subtle points. You can learn the (37:51) basics in a short period of time, but to be a really good consultant, and then to also understand (37:57) the business and the problems that they’re having. So it takes some time to get to that level.

(38:03) But yeah, we have a great team. You know, I mean, one of my guys, his son plays baseball. He (38:10) knocks off at four o’clock, takes him to the game, spends time.

Then he’s back online at nine, (38:15) 10 o’clock at night. So, and I don’t care, you know, as long as clients are taken care of and (38:20) we work as a team. So if somebody is off, somebody else will pick it up.

So, because I mean, (38:29) I think that number one lesson, I think for any business out there that I would (38:35) say is maximize customer service. Sure. (38:39) Because people love great customer service.

They really do. (38:43) Yep. Yep.

And they’ll pay for it. You also, you’ve got another transformation kind of (38:49) in process here. You’ve been the, the, both the CEO and president of the organization (38:55) for a long time.

Yep. And, and now you have a chief operating officer who’s going to take, (39:01) take even more of the day-to-day pieces. Yes.

Well, I’m going to be 69. By the way, (39:08) the appropriate response is. Yeah.

I almost, I forgot. No, Jay, no way. You don’t look that.

(39:15) No, I’m going to be 69 years old. And, you know, my wife was involved in the business. She retired (39:21) the end of December of 24.

And so I’m cutting back on the business. It’s about time. And, (39:30) you know, so my chief operating officer, she’s great.

She was a user of the tool for 10 years. (39:38) Oh, that’s a testament, huh? Before she came on board. And my first employee ever, Ed Fisher, (39:45) when, when Ed announced he was going to retire, I was putting out ads and she contacted me and, (39:53) you know, she, she got a lot of experience from a hands-on practical perspective of using it, (39:59) which is great for the clients.

You know, she’s younger. She’s pretty much, we are 98% paperless (40:07) now. We’re actually much more efficient.

She’s really taken the operations and done a great job. (40:14) So. Great.

What do you think the future holds with her doing what she’s doing? (40:19) I’ve been hearing a lot lately about the knock. When an employee knocks on your office door and (40:24) says, got a minute? And you immediately know it’s some sort of IT incident, but Oxium IT can help.(40:30) Whether you’re having a problem, need consulting, an upgrade or a managed IT approach, they focus on (40:35) preventing cyber attacks and proactive solutions that deliver results.

My friend, Matt Loria and (40:41) everyone at Oxium are ready to help before or after you get the knock. Visit Oxium.com and let (40:48) Oxium IT help you outsmart chaos. She’s very growth oriented.

She’s chomping on the bit. (40:55) She’s like, I want to do this and I want to do this and I want to do this. And we’re actually (40:59) going to be meeting later this month to go through our business plan.

Okay. I’m not going to be (41:05) complete. I’m going to step away from the day-to-day operations, but I’m not going to completely (41:11) step away from the business.

You know, we’re going to be doing a podcast series, (41:15) kind of similar to you. I see a great idea. I copy it.

There you go. R&D, rip off and duplicate. (41:21) That’s right.

Rip off and duplicate. I can tell everybody this was my own idea. (41:26) So we’re going to be doing that.

I like to do presentations to groups (41:30) and things like that. So, and Leslie’s excited. She wants me to be involved.

(41:35) And so, because I did ask her, I said, you know, are you sure you want to be involved? She’s like, (41:39) yeah, I really do. So, you know, the team is preparing for it. She’s very growth oriented.

(41:46) You know, but that, that comes with what a person told me. I think there’s a lot of truth in this. (41:53) When you’re in your forties, man, you just got all the energy and you want to conquer the world.

(42:00) In the fifties, it kind of starts to wane a little bit. And in the sixties, you’re like, (42:05) why the heck am I still doing this? And there, I think there’s some truth to that. There really(42:10) is.

So my team is younger, which was one of our goals to get younger. You know, so they’re, (42:17) they’re younger. They’re very passionate about it.

They want to grow the organization. (42:21) And so I’m excited for them. You know, it’s time, it’s time for, it’s time for new leadership.

(42:27) Got it. When you look back and you maybe tell Leslie, hey, here was the hardest season of (42:33) growth for us. You know, when you were pushing on that growth, on that growth throttle, (42:39) what, what, what are some of the stories you would tell her or advice you would give her? (42:45) Well, one of the first things is be persistent.

You’re, you’re, you’re in sales. I mean, (42:53) I’m in sales. You know, there’s going to be good times.

There’s going to be not so good times, (42:58) but the thing is you can’t throw in the towel. You can’t throw, you know, throw up your hands. (43:03) You know, one of my consultants was having a bit of a rough streak and like, and I’m like, (43:09) just be persistent, go after it, keep working them.

And then landed a great deal. (43:16) So I think that’s kind of the biggest thing. Just be persistent, be goal-focused.

You never (43:21) know what’s going to happen. You know, I mean, at the beginning of 2020, none of us predicted COVID. (43:27) Right.

Yeah. I remember coming back from a conference and being on the plane and we’re (43:32) all wiping everything down with Clorox wipes, man, we’ll be glad when this is over within two weeks. (43:37) So things are going to happen that way.

You just kind of have to be flexible, (43:42) kind of roll with the punches. But the biggest thing is be persistent, you know, as you know, (43:48) you know, you have highs, you have lows. I think you don’t want to get too impacted by the highs, (43:56) but you also don’t want to get too impacted by the lows.

It happens. I mean, business is, (44:01) it’s hard. If it was easy, everybody would do it.

Sure. So it’s hard. And I, but that’s kind of been (44:10) my biggest thing is, is kind of nose to the grindstone.

You know, I mean, when I, when I (44:18) left my other organization and I started this, there were people that were interested in what (44:23) I was doing, but they waited a couple of years. Yeah. Right.

They wanted to make sure I was going (44:27) to make it. Sure. And you’re going to go bankrupt or something.

Sure. Yeah. You were more, but you (44:32) had that, you just had that entrepreneurial piece where you could stomach the risk, could stomach (44:37) the uncertainty and the others didn’t.

Well, and that’s it, you know? And that’s okay too, right? (44:45) Yeah, it is. It is okay. You know? And so I just think kind of being persistent, (44:51) treating your team fairly and good, and she’s great with the team.

They love her (44:56) and she’s great with them. And she’s probably better with them than I am.(45:03) Did you see how fast I was to agree? Yeah.

Well, you know, as entrepreneurs, (45:08) we could be a little bit of a headache at times, you know, I’m getting some nods in the room here. (45:16) You know, you said to me something we were talking the other day, and you said that, (45:20) that entrepreneurs don’t set boundaries. Talk about that and like how that’s kind of, (45:29) I don’t know, shaped you, shaped your journey maybe.

And you know, and even how that’s going (45:35) into, it’s gone into this kind of what I would call first level of succession planning here, (45:40) right? Because you’re not leaving the organization. You’re just changing some of the roles that you (45:44) have and what you’re doing. So, so how’s that not setting of boundaries? You know, (45:52) entrepreneurs don’t have boundaries as much.

Well, I think when you first start a business (45:57) as an entrepreneur, you can relate to this. A hundred percent of your focus is on the business. (46:05) One hundred percent.

So it’s like working seven days a week, 12 hours a day. Well, I got to do it. (46:14) I have to do it because if I don’t do it, it’s not going to get done.

And I was like that, (46:21) you know, and a few years into the business, my wife, she came into my office (46:26) and she kind of stood across from me and she says, I want to talk to you.(46:30) She goes, you know, I understand this is important. I’m just asking you to reprioritize a little bit (46:37) because I’d like to spend at least a couple of hours a night with my husband.

(46:42) Mm hmm. Not with Jay from Acumax? Not with Jay from Acumax. And that was kind of a wake up call.

(46:49) And one of the things that, you know, I’ve dealt with a lot of entrepreneurs over the years, (46:53) and you can have a lot of entrepreneurs that become hugely successful at the cost of their (46:59) personal relationship. Yes. So always remember, I think that you have to make time for them.

(47:06) It really kind of goes back to the old adage, you know, when you die, people aren’t going to (47:12) remember how much money you made, how many toys you had. People are going to remember the times (47:17) you spent with them. So that’s one of the things you have.

So you have to set some boundaries. (47:23) I’m going to work X and then I’m going to take some time off. And there’s a benefit to it (47:28) because when you’re taking time off, if you’re just hanging out, you know, with the family, (47:33) doing some things, it refreshes your mind.

You actually get more creative that way. You have (47:39) better ideas. Sometimes you have to walk away from it.

So you want to set those boundaries. (47:44) It’s very important. You know, I think because your family with many entrepreneurs, and I know (47:51) mine is one, are the reason I was successful.

Yeah. Doug, we had Doug Mann’s from Mann’s Lumber. (47:57) You’ve heard of Mann’s Lumber? Sure.

And he was here and he, that was one of his number one, (48:02) number one pieces. He said, I had to create the boundaries. I had to make sure that I, (48:07) you know, gave time to my family appropriately.

And he credits that to so much of his success too. (48:15) Absolutely. Well, you step away, you get fresh, you get your mind to relax a little bit.

You’re (48:20) fresher about it. It’s more important, you know, to spend some time with the people who love you (48:25) and that you love too. Sure.

So you had talked about, there’d been some other things that we (48:33) talked about, which was kind of real world impact that you’ve seen from the work that you’ve done, (48:41) right? The tools, the Acumax tool in particular. Somebody, somebody, one of your clients, (48:51) you had a, you had a marriage saving story. You had a, um, uh, kind of a growth, uh, (48:57) story and acquisition story.

Can you share, share a couple of those? Well, one of my clients, he’s, (49:03) he’s a huge fan of Acumax and anytime he meets anybody, he tells them I’ve saved three marriages (49:10) with this tool. Okay. Because this is what happens in a relationship.

You know, you meet somebody, (49:15) they’re stars, stars turn into love. Did he have to get married three times to figure that out? (49:20) No, he’s helped three other people. Oh, okay.

Um, you know, but the, the, the reality of it is, (49:27) is over time, the stars kind of fade and you know, uh, you look at your wife or your significant (49:33) other or your husband and you go, all those cute things you did while we were dating become (49:37) downright irritating after five years of marriage. And, um, I went through it myself. Jackie, (49:43) remember that.

Okay. With my, I went through that with myself, with my wife, you know, we’re both (49:47) high in the a, we both like our way of doing things best early in our relationship. We draw (49:53) a line in the middle of the carpeting and dare each other to cross it, you know? So if I can (49:58) do a quick story, of course, um, when I first gotten into all of this, um, my wife had come (50:04) home from work and there was a pigeon on our front porch and had been hit by a car.

It had a broken (50:11) leg and a broken wing. My wife loves animals. So she decided she was going to nurse this pigeon (50:18) back to health.

So she got a basket and, you know, got together and was feeding it. (50:25) And so after about a month, uh, the leg healed pretty good, but the wing did not. So my wife (50:32) says to me, you know, I was wondering if you would build a cage for Pidge.

That was our name for the (50:37) pigeon, Pidge. Very creative people. So I said, sure.

You know, so I go to Home Depot and I got (50:44) some wood and some screen and I’m out in the garage and I’m building the cage, but I’m building it (50:49) my way. So she comes out and I wasn’t building it her way. So we had one of those big knock (50:57) down, drag out, married people fights in front of the squirrels, the chipmunks, the neighbors, (51:02) of course, Pidge, uh, over, over a cage.

Um, that was one of our first big aha moments, (51:10) you know, of how can we use this to better get along? So what we do now is if it’s her project, (51:18) her idea, I can give, I can give suggestions. She has veto power. It’s my idea, my suggestion, (51:25) my, my project.

She can give ideas, but I have veto power. (51:29) Great. You figured out the rules of the road then.

(51:31) Yeah. But it creates clarity. It understands why, because see, I never knew it.

You know, (51:36) I’m just like, well, I got the best way of doing things. Why wouldn’t you agree with that? (51:41) And she’s like, well, I got the best way of doing things. So I’m not going to agree with you.

(51:44) So my client that saved three marriages, he sat down with them and kind of talked through issues, (51:49) drew it all back to a wiring pattern. And when you know why the mystery goes away, (51:57) you know, I mean, we’ve had some great successes. We’ve worked with them.

(52:01) A lot of companies, one company, they had 20, 25 employees when we started there over a hundred (52:05) today, virtually no turnover. They’ve developed their own workforce using this tool. They’re a (52:14) machining company and finding experienced CNC machinists is difficult these days.

The average (52:20) machinist age is 60 something and they’re in a smaller town. So to bring somebody in is expensive. (52:27) So they don’t even look for people with experience.

You have a wiring pattern match, (52:32) you have good mechanical aptitude, they will bring them in, they’ll train them. They have (52:36) super high retention. I had a client that was kind of the minnow swallowing the whale.

(52:42) They went and they bought, they acquired a much bigger organization. And I ran into the CEO at an (52:48) event and I said, you know, congratulations, you’ve done great. And I got one of the finest (52:53) compliments I’ve ever gotten.

He said, I couldn’t have done this if I hadn’t have known you. (52:57) And used your tool. So those are great things.

Those are the things that really make you smile. (53:04) It’s the non-monetary things of job satisfaction. When somebody says, my company is better (53:11) because I’ve used you.

We’ve improved here, we’ve improved there. And we do have some (53:18) raving fans. I have a lot of raving fans.

Yep. That’s great. So saving companies, (53:23) saving marriages, you’re doing good work.

I think so. Yes. People have always interested me and (53:30) it’s kind of a fun good give back.

Good. Yeah. I mean, I’ll wrap this up with the statement that (53:36) I often make, which is you’re uniquely qualified to be exactly where you are.

I mean, you look at (53:42) your history, you look at what drives you, what motivates you and all the little steps along the (53:47) way. And you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, which is great, which is why there’s a (53:52) smile on your face. It is.

I love what I do. It’s kind of the advice that I oftentimes give to people (54:00) is when you work for a paycheck, you have a job, but when you follow your passion, that doesn’t (54:08) mean being an entrepreneur, just follow your passion. You can work passion in a company, (54:12) but when you follow your passion, that’s when you get true enjoyment, true satisfaction and (54:18) the money always comes.

Yep. Great stuff. I think that’s a great place to wrap it up.

You got (54:25) anything else you want to share with everybody? No, I don’t. It’s been great sitting down with (54:29) you. It was a lot of fun today.

I enjoyed it. I’ve been waiting for you to ask me to be on your (54:34) podcast. You finally did.

So thank you. You’re welcome. I’m glad you’re glad you’re here.

Glad (54:38) we did it. And you know, I’ll anybody who wants to try out Acumax, you can give me a call. I’ll run (54:44) a profile on them and assess them and then we’ll shift them over to you for the advanced maneuvering.

(54:52) That’s right. And if you want to go directly to the website, www.acumaxindex.com. Perfect. Yeah, (55:03) we’ll put that all in the show notes here.

Everybody will have access to that. And (55:09) anything else you want to share, if you want to throw up any special site, we’ll do that for (55:12) them as well, too. Sounds good.

All right. Well, great. Thanks, Jay.

Thanks so much for having me, (55:17) Matt. It’s been a pleasure.